


Mirror

by BlakeBroflovski



Series: Sentiment [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Related, Gen, Spoilers, part of a series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-14
Packaged: 2018-01-24 17:04:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1612709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlakeBroflovski/pseuds/BlakeBroflovski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A companion/prequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/983204">It's Funny Because Eren Can't Read</a>.</p><p>Eren's temporary imprisonment after the Trost cleanup operation, from Levi's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Since this is a one-shot, it is considered complete, though the story arc is ongoing and expands beyond it. Be sure to bookmark the [entire series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/57837) if you'd like to be kept up to speed with updates for the entire arc.
> 
>  **WARNING: HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. This piece spoils important details for anime-only audiences who aren't caught up with the manga and/or _A Choice With No Regrets_ , including Levi's last name and details of his life before the Corps. PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION!** 
> 
> On a non-spoilery note, [as I've explained previously](http://archiveofourown.org/works/983204/chapters/2943310), I'm operating under the idea that Isayama/Kodansha's stance of the reader using their own interpretation of Hanji's sex/gender carries over into the narrative, and that each character therefore chooses which pronouns to use for Hanji. You'll see that come up here.
> 
> Side note: I love writing Erwin. This man Knows What's Up and you can never tell if he's being genuine or manipulative or _both_. There are so many layers to this guy and I love peeling one back to reveal another underneath, gosh he's fascinating.

Your boots make clicking noises that echo uncomfortably loudly in the stone stairwell as you descend into the dungeon.  The manila file folder in your hand is the same as any other incident report: bland, boring, full of tactical jargon and legalese, ultimately unhelpful after several read-throughs because you still aren’t sure what the point of it all is.

So some kid can turn into a titan, apparently?

You really do not see how that is anything short of bad news.

You’re not sure why Erwin called you down here or why the military is housing this kid in the first place.  “Kid turning into a titan” seems like a situation that deserves a pretty straightforward procedure.  Find out where he came from and if there are more.  Execute the kid and snuff the rest of them out at the roots.  Simple.  Is there really a debate here?  Why is your presence needed?

Perhaps because you’re the only one who could get the job done, and everyone knows it.

The click of your boot steps is less obnoxious in the dungeon, where the cells allow more space for the sounds to echo.  Erwin has pulled up a chair in front of the cell at the far end of the hall and is staring into it absently without acknowledging your arrival, though you know he’s noted your presence.

There aren’t any other chairs for you to claim and occupy, but you’re already irritated enough by the fact that his head reaches your shoulders sitting down, and you do not need to sit and be given an additional reminder of how tiny you are.  You stand beside him and shift all your weight to one hip, crossing your arms over your chest with the manila file sticking out between your fingers.

If not for the floor-anchored chains leading up to the bed at an unnatural angle, you wouldn’t have realized anyone is in it.  When you notice, though, you can make out the shape of a person beneath the threadbare sheet and a dark mop of unwashed hair sticking out at the top.  The figure’s chest rises and falls slowly with the easy breathing of sleep.

Erwin doesn’t appear disposed to start the explanation, so you guess you’ll have to prod him.  You sigh and don’t care if he notices.  “So that’s the kid, huh?”

He nods, shifting to lean back in his chair.  “That’s our boy.”

A moment passes, and you discern that’s all he seems to want to say at the moment.  This is going to be one of those “teaching moment” exercises, you can feel it in your bones, and you really don’t want to snap your impatience at him; he tends to handle it remarkably well and only irritate you further.  For lack of anything else to do, you open the manila file and rifle through its contents.  The kid’s recruitment identification sketch looks familiar, but you’re not sure you can place where.  The incident report itself is merely a source of frustration to you, as confusing as it is nonsensical, and you flip through to the legal followup reports.

“They’re interviewing witnesses now?”

Erwin nods.  “His friends, mostly.”

You roll your eyes at his vague and feckless response.  You could’ve gotten that from the report, yeah; you’re trying to make him give you information you don’t already have literally at your fingertips.

“So what _exactly_ is the deal with this kid?”

Erwin draws a deep breath through his nose.  “Looks like he can turn into a titan.”

“Stop being infuriating.”

“You’re the one who flew to his rescue after his friends pulled him out of his own titan neck; you tell me.”

Recognition lights a spark in your mind.  So that’s where you’ve seen him — half drowned and filthy as hell, quadriplegic in the arms of his friends at the Trost gate.  You’re still sure, though, that you’ve met him even before that moment.

“I have no idea what he was doing.  I didn’t see anything.  You would’ve known if I had, because if I’d known the little shit could turn into one of _them_ , I would’ve dispatched him on the spot.”

“Kill first, ask questions later, eh?”

He’s handling your irritation far too well again, and you stare down at him.  “Why don’t you just tell me what the fuck is going on.”

He makes a flippant smile, but at least he answers you.  “We don’t really know what’s going on, or how he does it.  We’re trying to figure that out.  But, although his control over it seems to be tenuous, he does seem to be willing to use it to help humanity’s cause.”

“Of course he is.  He’s been caught and doesn’t have much choice without revealing his entire plot, does he?”

Erwin gives you a quizzical look.  “He already has revealed his entire plot.  I’d say being able to turn into a titan is the punch line of this affair, wouldn’t you?”

Not really; you’d say it depends on what else he’s hiding, and you’re inclined to think Erwin does too and is just trying to discern your viewpoint.  “You think he’s already shown his whole hand?”

“I think when he’s surrounded by the people who would kill him for treachery, he has no reason to be dishonest.”

Your eyebrows rise.  “I think that’s the _best_ reason to be dishonest, if he’s against us.”

“Do you think he’s against us?”

The stupidity of this question causes your arms to drop as flat as the expression on your face.  You’re not sure how much clearer you can be on this point, and your voice goes hard and loud.  “ _He can turn into a titan._ ”

“And that automatically makes him against us?”

You can’t tell if he’s playing devil’s advocate, or if he genuinely does believe the things he’s implying.  “Uh.  Yeah?  Why else was he hiding it from us?”  He makes a skeptical face, and you can tell immediately what he’s thinking — _for this exact reason, because people would react like this_.  Or maybe… “You don’t think he was hiding it.”  He shrugs noncommittally, and you sigh, “You think he didn’t know.”

Erwin brushes a stray bit of dungeon dirt off his lap.  “He says he didn’t.  His friends say he didn’t.”  You snort.  Of course that’s what they’d all say; that would be your excuse too.  It was in the past, in fact — _oh no, officer, I didn’t realize switchblades were illegal, I didn’t even know I had it on me.  I’m a good guy, I swear._   You’re making a face, but Erwin seems oblivious to your dubious expression.  You know he’s not, really, but he pretends to be.  He crosses one knee over the other and says, “His past is all accounted for, from birth until this moment, and there’s no reason to believe he’s lying.  If you’d check the report more thoroughly, you’d agree.”

You bristle at the implication that you haven’t read it scrupulously enough, partially because you haven’t.  “Why would I do that.”

“You’ve met him before, after all.”

Have you?  You thought you had, but you can’t place where…

“Look at his name again.”

You open the file once more, and above the recruitment sketch is the name EREN JÄGER.

“Jäger…?” you mutter to yourself, racking your brain for the source of that name.  At last, an image clicks of a little boy who lived with his parents in a humble dwelling, in an old farming city that you haven’t been able to see in five years.  You remember him spying on you with childish awe from the front room window when he thought you weren’t paying attention, and you remember him dropping a full glass of water and fleeing in panic the first time he saw you without the windowpanes between you.  You don’t remember his first name, but you’re sure it’s him.  He’s matured considerably since then, if the sketch does him any justice — the baby fat melted cleanly from his cheeks and a barely contained rage brimming within his deep-set eyes.  “The Shinganshina doctor’s boy?”

Erwin nods, seemingly pleased with himself for having led you to this conclusion.  “The very same.”

With this recognition, another memory springs to mind — that of leaving the Trost gates at the start of the last expedition.  You remember this boy calling your name from the crowd and pointing you out loudly and animatedly to his comrades.  You flip back to the followup reports and recognize their faces from the list of interviewees.

To your shock, you notice the one with the scarf is named Ackerman.

A stone drops in your stomach, threatening rage and panic within you.  You try not to think too hard about it, because plenty of people must be named Ackerman and it doesn’t have to mean she’s connected to _him_ … but you were connected to him and you still bear the same surname, so despite how irrational it may be, you can’t deny that the name supports your mounting distrust for this kid and all of his associates.

You don’t mention that part.

“This kid pointed me out at the start of the 56th.  He knows my name.”

“Of course he does,” Erwin says, “he’s Grisha’s boy.  He’s familiar with all of our names and ranks and reputations.”  He turns a knowing smile toward you and adds, “Besides, who _doesn’t_ know your name?”

No one knows your full name.  That’s kind of the point of not giving it out.  But that’s not relevant; you’re fixating on the thing that’s upsetting you, and getting even more upset at the fact that you can’t mention it without incriminating yourself.  You stare at the sleeping figure in the cell.  “The fact that he’s Jäger’s son doesn’t make him trustworthy.  It puts him in a position to know a great deal of intel, and that makes him dangerous.  And if his father’s example is anything to follow, disappearing without apparent cause and without notice…”  Erwin is staring at you in a mildly judgmental way you’re not fond of, and you sigh.  “I don’t expect a particularly positive outcome here, all things considered.”

Erwin’s mildly judgmental stare has grown more than mild.  “You do know Grisha isn’t connected to the military and isn’t obligated to inform us of his whereabouts, right?”

Yes, you do, and the insinuation of your ignorance is annoying.  “If we’re in the middle of a crisis and we need to keep strict tabs on how many mouths are left to feed, especially that of a doctor whose services we frequently employ, why the fuck would he _not_ tell us?”

“Because he’s not obligated to.”

You make a wordless sound of frustration and stare at the kid, knowing this is all his fault somehow.  Well, really, you don’t know that.  But you want to believe it, because it gives you something tangible to fight against.  “Don’t you think it’s possible he has something to do with it?”

Erwin’s judgmental stare turns critical, trying to read your body language, but you give him nothing.  “Do you mean… you think he did something to his father?”

You shrug one shoulder.  “He _can_ turn into a titan.”

Erwin sighs.  “Levi, I think you’re looking for excuses to distrust him.”

“And I think you’re ignoring them.”

“I think we should wait and see how this plays out,” he insists, taking the file from you and straightening the pages against his lap.  Your hands feel empty and useless without something to do, and you ball them into fists and cross your arms over your chest.  “We have to be cautious, of course.  Absolute trust is a terrible mistake.  But at this point, where he’s been caught in the worst possible situation and there is no extant family to save him, I think we should give some merit to the idea that he has good cause to be truthful if he wants to stay alive.”  You try to say you should give equal merit to the idea that he has good cause to lie for the very same reason, but Erwin cuts you off.  “He’s in the eye of the storm, Levi.  It’s only going to get worse from here.  There is a difference between infiltrating us, between making the best of a bad situation, and straight-up cooperating with us.  By all accounts, _including Pixis_ , he’s been nothing but cooperative.”

You pick at the buttons on your shirt cuffs.  “I still don’t like it.”

“Let me ask you this,” he says, turning in his seat to face you better, and you lean back against the wall behind you just to make it harder for him out of spite.  He doesn’t react.  “What’s your honest, instinctive opinion of this kid?  Ignore the report,” he says as your gaze darts toward the manila file in his hand.  “Just focus on him, on what you know and remember of him, what you’ve seen.  What does your gut tell you?”

Erwin knows you far too well if he’s asking questions from the gut, not routine and experience and paperwork.

You stare through the cell bars and let out a deep, long sigh.

You remember him being fucking adorable as a child, and you remember him being equally adorable, if not annoying as hell, at the start of the 56th.  He’s clearly infatuated with you, and even though you have no idea why he would be, it’s flattering.  You suspect it’s some kind of innocent hero worship complex, and you don’t suppose anyone who loved you so much would turn on you.

You saw him half-conscious and needing stabilization support from two people at once at the wall, after he’d closed the breach.  It seems like a strange thing for someone with an agenda of treason to have such little control over their own abilities.  Getting caught could have been planned and faked, meaning he wouldn’t truly be as clumsy and ill-prepared as he seemed, but requiring this long a period of rest and recuperation after… not so much.

You know Grisha was never an especially mentally stable man, from your limited interactions, but a traitorous one, you don’t believe at all.

Your training tells you to be distrustful of anything associated with titans, and with the name Ackerman, and the existence of both these things in tandem makes you incredibly jumpy.

But your gut?

You lick your lips.

“I think we should find out what he wants.”

Erwin seems pleased with this response.  “What do you suspect?”

“I suspect… if he’s not on our side, he’ll feel the need to say he is.  If he truly is, he won’t have to.”

“You know that if he says he’s on board with us…”

“I have to be the one to take charge of him,” you finish.  “I know.  Only I can handle the job.”

Erwin gives an appreciative nod, and tips his chin toward the inside of the cell.  The chains leading up to the figure in the bed jingle as the figure shifts.  “Looks like he’s coming around.”

You raise an eyebrow.  “Convenient.”

You and Erwin remain silent as the boy groans himself into consciousness.  He attempts to roll over and finds his movements restricted, and can’t reach to rub the sleep from his eyes, forced instead to rub his face on the dirty shoulder of his shirt.  He registers the chains binding him, and using their counter-pull to his advantage, tugs himself upright to better examine his surroundings.  You both watch him in stillness until he notices you, and when he does, he jumps so badly the chains rattle all the way down to the floor.

Erwin sits forward in his chair.  “Hello, Eren.”

The boy blinks wide, startled eyes at the pair of you, and there’s nothing enraged or bloodthirsty about them now, just confusion and terror.  If not for the sharp teenage angles of his features, you’d say he’s a carbon copy of the boy who fled from you in his own home and completely irreconcilable with the boy in the sketch.

He doesn’t respond to Erwin, still drinking in his surroundings.

Erwin doesn’t seem fazed.  “Shall I tell you what you’ve missed?”

The boy stares at him silently, and he takes the boy’s lack of refusal as his cue to continue.

“It took us a full day to clean up all the titans that had been sealed in Trost when you blocked the gate.  Most of them were taken out with explosive projectiles from the rampart cannons, and nearly all of the rest were eliminated by the Survey Corps.  The last two remaining were taken alive by us, as test subjects.”

The boy shakes his head, as if warding off a troublesome insect.  You realize his hair could be quite pretty, once it’s washed, and you attribute this intrusive thought to boredom.

“That’s all the important things that have happened during the three days you’ve been sleeping in a comatose state.  So, Eren…”  The boy makes focused eye contact with Erwin at the mention of his name.  “Do you have any questions?”

The boy’s body trembles, but not as badly as his voice, unusually high-pitched for his age.  His question is unexpectedly simple.  “Where am I?”

Erwin interlaces his fingers.  “You’re in a dungeon, as I suppose you can tell.  We’re not able to say much more than that.  You’re in the custody of the Military Police.  We were only granted the rights to see you a few minutes ago.”  As he speaks, a guard flanking the boy’s cell who you hadn’t even noticed before this moment makes a repulsed face, and the finger of his dominant hand twitches for the trigger of his rifle.  You turn your head to look at him directly; if he’s thinking about making a move on Eren or either of you, he’s got another thing coming.  He notices you staring and snaps back to attention.

Eren is waking up more by the moment, and urgency begins to leach into his voice.  “What’s going to happen to me now?  Where are my friends?”

Erwin sits back.  “We’re talking to them.  Not just the two you were found with, but anyone who might know anything about your past.  And what’s going to happen now…”  He reaches into his coat, into the breast pocket of his shirt, and withdraws a shiny brass key.  “Is different than anything else we’ve ever done.”

At the sight of the key, Eren makes a sound of recognition, sitting bolt upright.  “Hey, that’s—”

“Yes,” Erwin cuts in gently, “it’s yours.  You can have it back when all this is settled.  It’s the key to your basement, right?”  Eren nods, and Erwin elaborates, “That basement, in your father’s house, holds the secret of the titans.  Is that correct?”

Eren nods again, more forcefully this time.  “Yes— or… at least, that’s what my father said.  Before the wall fell.  I never got to see inside it, and… I don’t know where he is to ask again.”

Irritation has your mouth open before you can stop yourself.

“So your daddy turns up missing, and you’ve lost your memory of his departure… how convenient.”

Erwin turns a disapproving stare toward you sidelong.  “Levi, we’ve agreed he has no reason to lie.”

You didn’t agree to such a thing, actually, but you recognize this as Erwin's way of telling you to be quiet.  This is his show, after all, not yours; you're still not quite sure why you're here.  You let him continue uninterrupted.

“There’s still so much we don’t understand, and we’d like to try, if we could.  But for right now, what we think is most important is to ask about your intentions.”

The word seems to discombobulate the boy, and he furrows his brows at it.  You don’t miss that his eyes keep flicking over to you.  “My intentions?”

Erwin nods sagely.  “In order to investigate that basement, we need to reclaim Shinganshina.  But we would have to plug the wall there the same as was done in Trost.  We would require your titan form, and its strength.  So you see, no matter what happens to humanity, our fate rides on the actions of a titan — whether the Colossal and Armored types, or you.”

Eren’s eyes glaze over and drift down to the foot of his bed.  It’s hard to tell from this distance in the poor light, but you think he’s shaking his head in distress.

Your suspicions toward his friend for her name haven’t budged, but you’re having a hard time holding onto your suspicions toward Eren.  Now that you’ve seen him awake and interacting with you, the idea that he could be a traitorous or dishonest person is almost hilarious.  He’s clearly in shock and overwhelmed, and you can tell from his words and mannerisms that he’s the type of person who has a terrible poker face.  You don’t think he’s capable of faking his current state.

Erwin presses on, “If you would, think of your will as the key,” and he holds up the brass key in his hand to make his metaphor clear.  You resist the strong temptation to roll your eyes.  He’s an eloquent and persuasive person, but he’s terrible with figures of speech.  “It’s the key to freeing the human race from its current fate.  So… what do you want to do?”

Either Eren isn’t focused at all anymore, or his answer is too staggering for him to spit out, because he stutters and falls silent, his head drooping toward his lap unseeingly.

You wait for him to snap out of it, and when he doesn’t, you become impatient.

“Hey,” you bark, and to your surprise and irritation, he doesn’t react.  “We don’t have all day, you little shit.  Answer the man.  What do you want to do?”

Slowly, his head rises, and the look on his face causes the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up with trepidation.  _Now_ you can recognize him from the recruitment sketch in his file — the unbridled hatred boiling over from an interminable hellfire of indignant rage inside him.  You know that look.  You know that rage.  You’re far too familiar with it, and for a split second, you feel as though you’re staring into a mirror, and it scares the shit out of you.

His voice shakes with anger, and it isn’t high-pitched anymore.  “I want to join the Survey Corps and murder some fucking titans.”

His response stirs recognition within you, and something else too: intrigue.

You perk an eyebrow at him.  “Oh?”

It’s exactly what you would never have said in his place, what you refused to say in his place until your people were threatened with death and your face held in stagnant sewer water until you had to inhale, and you’re fascinated by it.  He’s so much like you, with his unending feelings of injustice and outrage, with his insatiable bloodlust and warlike temperament, but he’s not you.  He hasn’t been tainted by evil.  He’s seen it, been touched by it, and knows what it does, and for that, you know he won’t fall to it.  He seeks to rip evil up by the roots, even if it costs him his life.

You have no doubts anymore concerning his loyalty.

You're still not sold on the Ackerman girl, but Eren's response has drawn your approval, even if against your will and all your expectations.  You murmur, “Not bad.”

You step toward him, and instantly, his demeanor begins to shift back to fear and consternation.  Traces of the rage remain at the core, though, unable to be snuffed out.  Erwin watches you move, and you call out to him.

“Tell the upper brass I’ll take charge of him,” you say as you step up to the bars.  His expression has you reaching out toward his face before you’re aware of what your arm is doing, and in an attempt to conceal your behavior, you seize one of the bars of his cell.  “Don’t get me wrong — it’s not like I trust him.”  Lies.  You can’t trust him completely, but what little skepticism remains is microscopic, and you and Erwin both know it.  You're just saying whatever you have to say to keep Eren from getting complacent.  “If he betrays me, I’ll put him down instantly.”  That much, you do know is true; you don’t tolerate dissent, and especially won’t from a person who turns into a titan.  “Brass shouldn’t have a problem with it, since I’m the only one fit for the job.”

Eren stares at you, his expression altogether too readable and honest, and you can tell he’s frightened to the bone at the prospect of his childhood hero ending his life.  Good.  You need him to be scared of you, because fear is how you’ll keep him in line.

You stare right back, addressing him now.

“Welcome to the Survey Corps.”

He stares back at you, his body still trembling, and you can clearly read in his face that his is not at all how he’d hoped his first meeting with you would go.

You step back from the bars as Erwin rises from his chair.  “We’ll ask around and see what we can do,” he says, holding the manila file under his arm.  “Please try to endure this for a while longer.  We’ll try to handle this as quickly as possible.”

Eren nods, and you turn away without another word, following Erwin up the stairs and onto the main floor of the justice hall.

He keeps his voice low, in case you’re overheard.  “I suppose you can figure out that I’ve already got a plan.”

“Yep,” you murmur, squinting against the bright blocks of sunlight streaming through the windows, “and I’m already sure I’m not going to like it.”

“I’m going to talk to Pixis,” he says, “and see what can be done on the side of the Garrison, but likely, we’ll need to handle this on our own.  And we’ll have to do it with a little show.”

You stop in the middle of the hall and close your eyes.  The urge to groan at him is strong, but you let out a long, silent sigh instead.  His “shows” generally involve you living up to your reputation as a horrific bestial menace.  “What do you want me to do.”

He waits for you to open your eyes and face him before he responds.

“You’re going to have to hurt him.”

You look away, pulling out a clean linen from your coat pocket and rubbing your hand over it from where you touched the prison bar.  The image of his face, childlike and terrified in the dark, won’t leave your mind’s eye.  It seems strange and amusing and altogether too fucking predictable that just a few minutes ago you were ready to lobby for the right to torture and execute him, and the moment he opens his big pretty eyes and bats them at you a few times, you’ve melted.  You’ve always been a sucker for cute kids looking up to you, and the fact that he reminds you so much of a younger more innocent you is magnifying the issue beyond your imaginings.

A thrill of understanding rips through you as you realize why Erwin wanted you down there just now.  If you've figured out Eren harbors some affection for you, Erwin must've figured it out ages ago, and your inevitable reaction to Eren's affection would've been as plain to him as a titan's kill spot.  He wanted you down there because he was counting on you to get attached to Eren.

Because if you’re attached to him, you’ll want to save him, and you need to want to save him because you're the only one who can.

And damn him, it worked.  You _do_ want to save him.

But…

“I don’t want to hurt him.”

Erwin gives you a hopeless hand gesture and a resigned face.  “You have to prove that if he’s dangerous, as they’ll say he is, you can still control him.  Didn’t you just say you’re the only one fit for the job?”

“This isn’t what I wanted,” you hiss, “to put on this costume of a brutish dog of war and do an intimidation dance for you in front of the MP.  This isn’t what I signed up for.  I left that bullshit behind when I agreed to stay on, remember?”

“You stayed because you see how important it is to protect humanity,” he says, “whatever it takes.  And right now, this is what it takes.  We need him if we want to save ourselves.  They’re going to try to kill him, and if they do, they'll damn all of humanity.  We have to save him.  He trusts you, he loves you — don’t shake your head at me, you can see it as well as I can, he’s loved you for years — you’re the only one who can do this without damaging his trust in the Corps.  If anyone else tries, he’ll start doubting his opinion of us.  But you?  He'll forgive you in an instant.  You can save him, and only you.  I need you to do this.  Humanity needs you to do this.”  He pauses, examining your face.  “Eren needs y—”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” you snarl, the sudden red-hot outrage of offense whipping out like a solar flare.  “Don’t try that emotional manipulation bullshit on me.  I'm so far beyond a point where you can pull my strings like a god damn puppet, and you know it.”

Erwin drops that particular act with an abrupt deadening of his face.  “You're right, and I apologize.  Trying my usual tricks on you is an insult to your faculty.”  You nod jerkily at him, and he shrugs.  “Potential emotional impact aside, though, the dry fact still remains.  He _does_ need you.”

You want to touch a hand to your face, rub the irritation out of your eyes and hold your chin, but your hands are dirty from the cell bars and you can’t.  You sigh, and your shoulders slump with assent.  “Fine.”

He beams at you as if you’ve just told him what you’re getting him for Christmas.  “Excellent.  Thank you, Levi.  I can always count on you to take up th—”

“You're still doing it, Erwin,” you say, and he nods, leaving that bullshit thought unfinished.

“Fair enough,” he says, his voice flat again, the mask of paternal geniality dropped for good.  “If you'll excuse me, though, I have to find Pixis.  You should go talk to Hanji and get hir in on this.”

“Oh why,” you gripe.  Once upon a time, you’d been confused by Hanji’s ever-changing pronouns varying based on each person’s perception of her gender, but that time has long since passed.  “Haven’t you punished me enough today?”

He laughs and turns his back, departing with a wave over his shoulder.

You grunt wordless irritation in his wake and stalk off in search of your least favorite biologist, historian, and all-around turd nerd.  You wonder what pronouns Eren will end up using for Hanji.  You kind of hope he goes with the ones you use.

More than that, though, you feel dread sinking deeper and deeper into the pit of your gut with every footstep as you hope against hope that Erwin is right and Eren will still be willing to talk to you at all after what you’re about to do to him.

Maybe he’ll even let you wash his greasy hair.

**Author's Note:**

> _**[continue to It's Funny Because Eren Can't Read ⇒](http://archiveofourown.org/works/983204/chapters/1936932) ** _


End file.
